The Facebook Outage Caused 3 Million People to Sign Up for Telegram, Whatever That Is

The cloud-based messaging app for every blackout

By Logan Mahan

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14 March 2019

Where were you during the #GreatSocialMediaBlackoutOf2019? Tweeting your gym selfies instead of posting them on Instagram? Perhaps you started to write handwritten letters to your loved ones, discovering how personable and romantic it all could be. Or maybe you really lost your shit and were one of the 3 million people who downloaded the Telegram app.

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov announced yesterday that the platform had gained 3 million new users in the last 24 hours due to the Facebook/WhatsApp/Instagram blackout. If you’re not already one of the 200 million users on Telegram, you probably don’t know what it is. Well, it’s a free messaging app, but unlike WhatsApp, Telegram uses a cloud-based messenger with seamless sync. As a result, you can use it on all your devices simultaneously, and your messages will sync across all your phones, tablets and computers. You can also create groups for up to 200,000 people or channels for broadcasting to unlimited audiences, which is more so useful for businesses users or small teams, or if you have a large extended family that you like to keep in touch with. Best part is, because of the cloud, it’ll take up nearly zero space on your device.

So relax the next time all your social media goes down, cause you have a backup option. Or maybe just go take a walk.